A French gang may have used drones before the break-up of a helicopter jail | News from the world

There have been 15 helicopter escapes in France in the last 37 years. Here are some of the most daring.

March 2003

Heavily armed gangsters used machine guns and anti-tank missiles to fight their way through the high security prison at Fresnes, near Paris, and release a notorious gangster. The French authorities said that they were confronted with "weapons of war" and had to rethink the security of the prisons.

Pascal Payet: 2001, 2003 and 2007

Payet used a helicopter three times to escape the prison. In 2001, he escaped the helicopter jail and, two years later, helped the inmates of the same prison to escape using the same method. In 2007, Payet made a second daring escape from Grasse prison in the south of France, with the help of four accomplices and a hijacked helicopter and a hostage pilot. By the time Payet was moved to a new prison every three months in an attempt to thwart his escape plans.

1986

The wife of Michel Vaujour, sentenced to a long prison term for attempted murder and armed robbery, took helicopter flying lessons to take her out of jail. Vaujour would have painted nectarines to look like grenades to make their way to the roof of the prison.

1981

Gangsters pretending to be businessmen rented a helicopter, took the pilot, his wife and children hostage and forced him to fetch two prisoners in the high prison safety of Fleury-Mérogis. , said a number of drones have been spotted flying over the prison in Réau, southeast of Paris, in recent months. She said the investigators were looking for possible links with Sunday's escape.

"Someone spotted this possible outcome, and this could have been done using drones," said Belloubet

. Sunday. This is the second time that Faid, a serial thief of banks and armored vehicles and fan of the Hollywood mafia heroes, has escaped prison in five years.

Faïd faces 25 years in prison for a series of crimes, including an attempted robbery in 2010, which led to a high-speed car chase and police shootout in which the officer Aurélie Fouquet, 26, was killed.

"Redouine Faid is someone who has freedom in his DNA." Laurent-Franck Liénard, the Fouquet family's lawyer, told RTL radio on Monday

Faïd, 46, spoke to his brother Brahim in the prison visiting area when, with smoke bombs to create a distraction, three masked and masked commandos, armed with Kalashnikovs and wearing "police" armbands, breached a security door

The operation lasted less than 10 minutes

After regrouping Faid in the helicopter, the gang forced the pilot to take the plane to Gonnesse near Charles-de-Gaulle-Roissy airport north of Paris, 60 km away, where a fourth commando was waiting with a black Renault Megane car. The pilot was released unharmed and the helicopter was discovered burned.

Faïd reportedly escaped along the A1 motorway heading north of the French capital before stopping to exchange a Megane against a white pickup truck.

The forces, the national and local police and the gendarmes, are on high alert in search of the escaped man and his cohorts. Security was strengthened at the Belgian border

"All forces were mobilized to locate the fugitive … coordinated control and interception devices were put in place taking into account the dangerousness of the fugitive and his possible accomplices ". The Interior Minister said on Monday

that French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe told RTL radio: "The police forces are fully mobilized to find this person. is dangerous; "

Police interrogate Faid's brother.

Prison union leaders told the world that they had complained about the lack of a net in the prison. main court, but they accused the prison authorities of not noticing it.] Belloubet added that the prisoners never used the court of honor "except when they left". do we need to re-examine this situation, "she said

." Last year, Faid was sentenced to 10 years in prison after escaping from Sequedin prison near Lille. in 2013 with four accomplices In this escape, four guards were taken hostage Five prison security doors were blown off their hinges with plastic explosives before the thief was picked up in a car and taken away. He was arrested in a hotel six weeks later.

Faid's criminal career began in 1995 when he stole a bank in his hometown of Creil, north of Paris, after taking the family of the bank's director as hostage. Over the next two years, he committed a series of robberies and was jailed for 18 years.

In 2010, Faïd claimed to be a reformed figure after being conditionally released and published a book called Thief: the Organized. Crime Cities, and undertook a tour of books, including appearances on French television.

A year later, he was back in custody, accused of being the brain behind an attempted robbery in which Fouquet had been shot.

The investigative journalist Frédéric Ploquin, who met Faïd several times while he was looking for a book on the French underground world, said that the dramatic escape was "very his style" .

He says the fugitive was a fan of Robert De Niro. Michael Mann and Steve McQueen

"He always tried to make real all the things he learned in the movies," Ploquin told BFM TV